Creating a city in the forest

By Celia Wade-Brown

Tuesday 18 June 2013

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Wellington recognises the importance of our natural capital, which is essential for our quality of life, our identity, and our economy. One example of our commitment to this, is our Two Million Trees project.

Wellington City Council is proud to have grown, planted and provided around 700,000 trees around the city in the last 10 years – all from our award-winning Berhampore Nursery. Volunteers, Council staff, businesses, school children and others have all done their bit in planting projects.

And we’re not working alone. Taking into account tree-planting efforts by community groups, NGOs and others, we estimate nearly one million trees have been planted in the city in the last decade. We are keen to do even better though, and are inviting partners to help us create a city in a forest, and reach a target of two million trees by 2020.

The primary objective of the Two Million Trees programme is to benefit the wider biodiversity and wildlife of the city. However there are important other benefits, including carbon sequestration, clean air, water run-off regulation, cooling in summer, shelter from the wind, helping people feel good and to recover from illness, providing a sense of place, and even boosting property values.

The ‘Water Whirler’ on Wellington’s harbour edge, designed by Len Lye

Crowds gather on a warm summer day to celebrate Wellington’s Cuba Street Carnival

‘Albatross’, forefront, at the gateway to Wellington’s harbour lagoon, flanked by the rowing clubs, the award-winning Wharewaka and The NZX stock exchange building.

Mayor Celia Wade-Brown (left) sharing a bike ride with some of Wellington’s international ambassadors.

For more information on Wellington, please click on the following links:

This post originally appeared here. Celia Wade-Brown is the Mayor of Welllington, New Zealand.

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